Author Archives: ROOPA M B

INTRODUCTION:

The movie Schindler’s List was based on the 1982 non-fiction novel, “Schindler’s ark” by Australian novelist Thomas Keneally.
The novel was brought into film by the Director and Producer, Steven Spielberg in the year 1993. The film was nominated for 12 academy awards and won 7 Oscars.
It was based on the true story of German Industrialist, who was also the member of the Nazi party, who saved more than 1300 Jews. The movie shows, how the profit seeking man turn towards the humanitarian path by employing and saving the refugee Jews, who were witnessing the atrocities by the Nazi German’s holocaust during World-war 2.

The Lead Roles:
Oskar Schindler- By Liam Neeson as German Industrialist.
Itzhak Stern- By Ben Kingsley as Schindler’s Jewish accountant.
Amon Goth- By Ralph Fiennes as an evil Nazi officer.
The starting:

There are many moments in the movie, that are distressing and horrifying that carved the truth about the holocaust of Nazi Germans towards the innocent Jews. The Jews were the shot-out game play to the Nazi Germans. From children, women, men to the old people, every one, literally everyone were brutally shot dead by the Nazis.
The movie starts with lighting the candle with the background voice of prayers, as candle melts out and turn off, the scene shifts towards the white and black, which goes back to September of 1939.
It was a time, when the German army defeats the Polish forces in just 2 weeks and the Jews in Poland were ordered to register their families and they were relocated to major cities. More than 10,000 Jews were sent to the Karkow ghetto and March 20th, 1941 was given as the last entering day to the Jews. In the mean-time the German industrialist, Oskar Schindler, who basically came to the city with the hopes of profiting from the war by manufacturing the products that were used in the war.
Oskar selects the Itzhak Stern, who was the intelligent Jewish accountant to run his business and everything was organised to employ the people, who needs to craft the products for the military use. The non- skilled Jew artisans were also taken to the factory, in order to save their lives. One of the such scenes accounted in the movie was, the man who had just one hand was also taken to the factory in order to save his life. He was working as a metal press machinist.
Amon Goeth, who was an army Lieutenant arrives to the Krakow ghetto in position to oversee the new concentration camp known as “Plaszow”. After the camp construction, all the Jews were forced to move to the camp. The camp was a horrified dead pool of Jews. One such scenes showed in the movie was, when one of the engineering graduated girl raised a question against the Nazi Germans, she was immediately shot to dead by army. On the other side, as a result of the merciless killings in the camp, Schindler loses his Jewish workers and the days of production.

The second half:

After witnessing the forceful deaths of the Jews, Oskar tries to maintain a cordial relation with the Goeth in order to keep up the support of his factory policies. And Oskar came to know that the Stern, who was his accountant was alive and locked up by the Goeth in order to work for him. Then after Oskar tries to meet his accountant Stern secretly.
The Oskar’s factory restarted. For people, Oskar’s factory was a kind of heaven since they can lead their life fearlessly. One of the such scenes in the movie was that, a women came to the Oskar and she begged him to save her parents since they are old, in order to save their life from the Nazi Germans.
One of the interesting scenes in the movie that drag and inspires the audience was the understanding of the “POWER” in the perception of Oskar Schindler, according to the Goeth, Power is the one, which is used to kill anyone. But Oskar quoted the Power as, “Power is when we have every justification to kill”. And he advised Goeth to look at the good.

Next day, when the Oskar met the Goeth, he witnessed Goethe’s brutal act of shrinking the water to drink to the caged people in the camp, then immediately Oskar responded towards the act by providing them the sufficient water to quench their thirst.
Oskar realized the brutality of the Goeth and Nazi Germans and started sympathizing the Jews. Along with Oskar, Stern also worked to save the Jews life from the Nazi Germans. They shifted the Jews from Plaszow camp to the W- provision. Oskar brought the rules, under the department-W provisions, it was the unlawful act to kill a worker without just cause, and under the business compensation fund, If the Nazi armies shoot the workers without thinking, then Nazi armies were arrested. There will be no executions, there will be no interference of armies of any kind in the production. Finally, armies were no longer allowed to the factory floor without Oskar’s authorization. he achieves and saved thousands of Jews lives.

CONCLUSION:
After lasting battle for 6 years, the World war-2 came to an end by signing the act of unconditional surrender by the Germany and the Army officer Amon Goeth was hanged for his criminal charges.
Oskar delivered his last speech to the workers.
“Tomorrow, you’ll begin the process of looking for survivors of your families, in most cases, you won’t find them. After 6 long years of murder, victims are being moaned thorough out the world. We survived, many of you have come up to me and thanked me but thank yourselves and by seeing Stern’s face, he said thank others among you who worried about you”. By saying this, he ended his talk and he was with the workers till the midnight.

The Last:
Where everyone gathers around him, the workers written a letter to him trying to explain everything and all the workers have been signed in the letter, in case if he was captured after he flee from there. And last words ended with Stern emotional words by giving him a ring, the ring was curved as “Forever saves one life saves the world entire”. When Oskar became emotional and said, I didn’t do enough, Stern replies “YOU DID SO MUCH”.

Is this, the act of humanity?
Even Today, we remember Oskar Schindler for his humanitarian service towards the man kind.